


Stepping Stones

by yourlocalai



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Post-Magic Reveal, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-13 19:57:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21003308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlocalai/pseuds/yourlocalai
Summary: While still struggling to accept Merlin as a sorcerer, Arthur stumbles upon an abandoned cavern hidden deep in the mountainside. The secrets it contains could be the bridge that draws them back together.





	Stepping Stones

The passageway Percival had stumbled upon in the mountainside was more cave than tunnel, crumbled and nearly impassable, but there was no mistaking it for something natural. A single, circular plinth near the entrance spoke of pillars long since collapsed, while the dim torchlight illuminated what once would have been a smooth, vaulted ceiling. Where their boots stirred up the thick dust, color would shine. The cracked, faded remnants of a mosaic.

Someone had built this tunnel, and Arthur wanted to know why.

“Step lightly,” he cautioned his men, holding his torch out to banish the suffocating darkness shrouding their way. “There may be traps.”

“Sire, look at this,” Lancelot said, his fingertips brushing lightly over the wall. Dust fell away as smoothly as powdered clay, revealing faint indentations marking the stone underneath. Arthur stepped closer.

“Carvings, perhaps?” Lancelot continued, brushing more earnestly at the grime concealing them. “I can’t make out a pattern.”

Arthur brought his torch as close to the wall as he could without smothering it, hoping to cast a shadow that would be more easily readable, but most of the markings were too worn to cast one at all.

“It’s no good, the light is too dim." 

He stepped back from the wall, a faint scorch mark the only thing left behind, and made to motion his men onward when Merlin cut smoothly in his path, one hand raised.

“Here, let me.”

Merlin laid his hand flat against the wall and, with a muttered incantation, all the markings began to glow. A faint blue light suffused the tunnel, stretching beyond sight in either direction and lighting their way better than torchlight ever could.

Arthur’s jaw twitched. 

It wasn’t that he was _frightened_, or even angry really. He was in a period of adjustment, that was all.

It didn’t help that none of his men showed the slightest hesitation about investigating the markings, as if he was the unreasonable one for failing to easily accept the most shocking, upsetting confession he’d ever received in his life.

Squaring his shoulders, he stepped forward as well.

“They look like claw marks,” Gwaine said, his fingers hovering just before the wall. It was hard to tell if he was investigating the marks or watching the play of light over his hand.

He was right too. All of the lines were perfectly straight, gouged into the stone in neat rows of three or four, except—

“There’s a pattern,” Merlin said, pointing. “Look, two sets of three, a set of two, and a set of four. It repeats over here.”

Arthur dismissed the urge to point out that he was about to say the same thing as unbecomingly petulant of a King, but he couldn’t help continuing in Merlin’s place.

“They’re all evenly spaced, and exactly the same size too.”

“A code perhaps?” Leon asked, except he wasn’t looking at Arthur, he was looking at—

“Can you read it, Merlin?” Lancelot asked, because everyone looked to Merlin as the answer to their problems now.

Merlin shook his head.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“We’re wasting time,” Arthur snapped, stalking away from the marks and trusting that he hadn’t lost so much of his authority that his men would fail to fall into step behind him.

He regretted the outburst almost as soon as he started walking, his men torn reluctantly away from the wall. They all knew him too well. It wouldn’t take much for them to piece together the trigger for his temper.

He tried not to dwell on how Merlin kept to the back of the group, these days.

Their walk proceeded in silence for some time, the weight of rock pressing heavy above them as the tunnel sloped downward, though it never changed in size. The glow grew brighter as the markings grew more and more dense, stretching to cover the ceiling and even the floor, in some places. The air grew thick and stale, sitting heavy in his chest until he thought they wouldn’t be able to press on much further before a lack of breath drove them out.

And then it ended, a solid wall rising out of the gloom to block their way forward.

“Damn,” he muttered, the arm holding his torch drooping in disappointment. He turned, hoping to discuss options with his men, only to see that Leon was the only one who’d kept pace with him. The rest of them were off a ways, dawdling as they stopped to gawk and poke at every interesting thing they saw. Merlin and Lancelot weren’t in view at all.

“For the love of—”

“Sire, look here,” Leon whispered, voice hushed in deference to the gloom of this place. Impending rant cut off, Arthur refocused.

Leon was scraping dirt off the wall at the place it joined with the tunnel, eyes squinted in concentration.

“I think this is a hinge. May I see the torch?”

The wall turned out not to connect to the tunnel at all, at least not on this side. There was a gap, no wider across than Arthur’s thumb, and through it they could just make out the barest hint of light glinting on metal.

The torch handed off to Leon, Arthur moved to the center of the wall and started brushing dirt away until, yes, there it was. At the center of the wall was a seam, so faint it almost couldn’t be seen, but following the wall from top to bottom. 

These were doors.

“Gwaine, get over here!” Arthur called to the closest of his men, though both Elyan and Percival quickened their steps at his call. “Help us push these.”

Shoulders pressed tight to both doorways, they dug their feet in and pushed. Elyan and Percival joined in a few moments later, all five of them packed in as tight as they could be. 

Nothing. Not even the groaning of hinges rusted shut.

Gwaine gave up first, pushing away from the wall with an explosive breath, face red with the exertion.

“We’d need a team of oxen to move this!”

“Unless it’s meant to open the other way,” Elyan pointed out.

Except there were no latches on this side, and the tunnel hadn’t branched off at any point along their journey. Either the door would stay shut, they would find another entrance somewhere else on the other side of the mountains, or they needed magic.

Arthur sighed.

“Merlin!”

His shout echoed wildly down the tunnel, and after a few moments they heard Merlin’s faint voice respond, “Coming!”

“More carvings,” Percival said, and Arthur was surprised to realize he was right. Merlin’s spell hadn’t illuminated these.

Unlike the markings on the walls, these were actual pictures. Running vertically along the edges he could make out a tree, a man bowing before something much larger than himself, and what might have been a sword. There were others, but his attention was grabbed by the image drawn through the center, so large he hadn’t at first noticed that the lines were connected.

It was a dragon.

Or the head of one, at least, drawn as if it were looking directly out into the tunnel, and masterfully carved. Although it was flat and stylized, something about it reminded him of the Roman statues still kept in storage in the keep. Lifelike.

Its eyes glowed green.

Distantly, Arthur was glad that he wasn’t the only one who stumbled backwards in shock, hand on the hilt of his sword even as he was turning around to find the most likely culprit.

“A little warning next time, mate!” Gwaine gasped, and sure enough, Merlin was standing a few feet away, arms raised defensively at the sight of five startled knights rounding on him.

“What, what’d I do?”

“What do you mean, what did you do? _That_.”

Arthur swept an arm out toward the glowing eyes, sharp irritation masking the pounding of his heart. Merlin’s face stayed blank with incomprehension. 

Such a cruel prank didn’t seem like Merlin’s style, and he truly didn’t seem like he knew what they were talking about. 

Arthur wished he could still trust these things.

“That wasn’t me,” Merlin said, and the others swung back to the door with renewed wariness, but Arthur kept looking at Merlin. Merlin broke eye contact first, face falling, and Arthur felt sick with guilt. 

Merlin hurt Arthur, now Arthur was hurting Merlin, but it didn’t feel in the slightest like getting even.

“It’s probably enchanted,” Merlin continued, carefully avoiding brushing Arthur’s shoulder as he moved past. “Let me see if—”

A deafening _crack_ silenced him, all of them hunching instinctively against fallen rock, though the tunnel stayed secure. A rush of cool, fresh air brushed through his hair and across his grimy skin, blowing in from the gap between the now open doors, gliding smoothly away from them on their own. They hit the opposite wall with a dull _thud,_ and everything descended back into silence.

“I swear we tried that,” Gwaine said. No one paid him any mind.

The doors opened up into a massive chamber, lit by an opening in the mountain top higher above them than the castle was tall. Mirrors placed along the walls reflected the light, until the entire cavern was as bright as the Great Hall on a clear afternoon. 

The room itself was styled like an amphitheater, five foot tall steps carved into the stone circling the room and climbing nearly to the ceiling, all sloping toward the Round Table dominating the center of the room. Arthur found himself drawn to it. 

Large enough to seat fifty people, it was carved from a dark wood Arthur didn’t recognize, the carvings inlaid around the edge and down the legs betraying its expense. Before every seat a golden disk had been set into the wood, each displaying what looked to be a unique sigil, though not from any house Arthur recognized. Whichever kingdom—or kingdoms—had ruled from here, they were old.

Out of all the disks, only one was shimmering with its own internal light, the same faint green as the dragon’s eyes.

“Oh.”

Merlin’s voice was faint, barely more than a whisper, but it was so quiet that everyone turned to him as soon as he spoke.

He held a book in his hands, and it wasn’t until then that Arthur even noticed the rows upon rows of bookshelves filling the back end of the room. Merlin set the book back down. 

“This is where the Dragonlords met.”

That made sense. A written language designed to look like claw marks. A room that was accessible from the sky and the ground alike. The dragon carved onto- 

_The door._ The door that had lit up and opened as soon as Merlin stepped near, because Merlin was a Dragonlord. The door that must have laid here for over twenty years, sealed and hidden away with no Dragonlords to open it.

Merlin was moving to the table, toward the one seat out of fifty still glowing. The one meant for him.

Arthur had thought the weight of the mountain heavy before. Now, watching Merlin explore the place that should have been his birthright were it not for Arthur’s own birth, its weight became unbearable. He should leave, should clear everyone else out of the room and allow Merlin privacy in his grief.

He couldn’t look away.

Merlin took his time studying the glowing disk, the one that must bear his family’s crest. This was probably the first he’d ever seen of it. 

If the Druids had a hierarchy beyond age, Merlin would have been a noble twice over. It was a funny thought, until he caught sight of Merlin’s hands, weathered by a lifetime of toil.

“I think we should go,” Merlin said, breaking the hush that had fallen over everyone. His voice was steady, but his eyes glimmered with tears.

No one protested.

* * *

“I don’t know why he doesn’t hate me.”

Guinevere’s arms were warm around his shoulders, her fingers combing through his hair. He hardly felt deserving of her comfort, but if his father had taught him anything it was that a King had only one confidant, and he couldn’t bring himself to turn her away.

He felt her sigh, her breath gusting along his forehead.

“You were as much a child as he was, Arthur. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know, but…”

Merlin was strange to him now, proud. Oh, he’d always been proud, Arthur had known that from the day he’d challenged Merlin to a duel, but his pride had changed from the arrogance of a peasant speaking to a Prince as an equal to a cold confidence in himself and his place in the world.

Pride in his magic and love for Arthur seemed like two very incompatible things.

“I got his father killed. I got his best friend killed. I put him to work in the household of the man that killed his entire _people,_ I…”

Gwen shushed him, her thumb falling over his lips. Helpless, he obeyed.

“It was hard for me too, you know,” she said, and again he marveled at her ability to hear the things he had trouble saying. Merlin should hate him, should have raged against him at every turn, but still Arthur wanted to see him fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness for lying to him all these years.

He hated himself for it, but he wanted it.

“How did you do it?”

Gwen sighed. “He’s not a different person, Arthur. You just have to talk to him. Let him show you that.”

_He’s not like Morgana,_ she meant, but Arthur already knew that. Merlin wouldn’t still be here, trying to repair the trust his lies had damaged, if he was.

He wasn’t afraid of Merlin’s betrayal. He was afraid that the man behind the lies would be nothing at all like the friend he’d left behind.

* * *

“Get ready to ride. We’re going back to the Dragonlords’ cave.”

Merlin’s face shuttered, wariness replacing the cautious friendliness he’d started with when Arthur approached.

“Why?”

“Because I’m the King, and I need you to open the door.”

Before, Merlin would have put up a fight, or at least complained incessantly while he readied himself to leave. Now, though it was grudging, he spoke not a word.

They rode out in silence.

The journey took only a few hours now that they knew where they were headed, the morning not yet given way to afternoon by the time they arrived. This time Arthur was prepared for the dragon’s glowing eyes, and did not flinch when the door swung open as soon as Merlin stepped close.

Neither of them stepped forward.

“Why did you bring me here?” Merlin asked softly, arms crossed over his chest as if he were fighting the urge to curl around himself. He looked vulnerable. Fragile.

_Just talk to him,_ Gwen had said. Here was his opportunity to talk, and Arthur found he had no idea what to say. He wasn’t even sure why he’d decided on this place, only that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since he’d left. 

“I don’t know anything about Dragonlords,” he settled on. It was true.

“What does it matter? There aren’t any left." 

“There’s one left.” 

Merlin flinched, though Arthur hadn’t said it to hurt him.

“If this is you trying to get back at me—”

“_No_,” Arthur protested, stung.

“Then what is it?” 

“I don’t understand you!”

His shout echoed out into the chamber, breaking and bouncing until there were a dozen Arthurs pushing all his frustration and exasperation back at him.

Merlin, stunned, lapsed into silence.

“I don’t understand why you’re still here,” he continued, and he hadn’t meant to turn this into a confessional, but now he couldn’t stop himself. “I don’t understand why you served me for as long as you did, or why you lied for as long as you did, or what made you make any of your choices. I don’t know _anything_ about you—” he broke off, chest heaving, and felt himself flush in embarrassment at the outburst. Merlin’s mouth had dropped open.

“So,” he said, when he felt like he’d gotten control of himself. “Dragonlords. Explain.”

After a few, agonizing moments, Merlin’s mouth quirked into the smallest of smiles.

“I don’t know anything about Dragonlords either, you know.” 

Arthur huffed. “Well, what’s it like, then?”

“I learned a new language and my dead father talks to me in my head sometimes,” Merlin said, brow raised, and Arthur stubbornly resisted ducking his head as his flush grew even worse. 

Merlin’s face softened. “Arthur…”

“Don’t.”

Arthur threw up a hand, not wanting to listen to platitudes about how nothing had really changed and how Merlin was the same as before when it came to the things that mattered. They both knew those weren’t entirely true.

Silence.

“I think the steps along the walls are where the dragons sat,” Merlin said suddenly, turning away from Arthur as if they weren’t teetering on a knife’s edge, about to fall apart. Arthur was profoundly grateful.

“Why?”

“Claw marks. _Actual _claw marks, and it makes sense that they’d be included in the meetings.”

Arthur didn’t know why that made sense, but he didn’t care so long as Merlin kept talking.

“I’m not sure how many would have fit in here,” Arthur said, giving the steps a dubious glance. Merlin laughed.

“Kilgharrah isn’t a good example. Most of them would have been much smaller.” He looked down, voice giving way to something more wistful. More painful. “There must have been hundreds of them.”

Arthur would have given anything to have even a shred of Gwen’s comforting nature.

But he didn’t, so all he could think to say was, “We could bring the books back, preserve them in the library.”

The logistics of it were already unfolding in his mind, how many carts he’d have to bring, renovations to the library, maybe dedicating an entire section to magic, but Merlin shook his head 

“No, I—I think I’d rather they stayed here, if that’s alright. I wouldn’t mind coming back to read them, though.”

“Of course,” Arthur said, the first tendrils of hope uncurling like smoke in his chest, filling up his lungs and pouring out his mouth into the words, “At least I’ll know where to look for you when you run off.”

It was the closest to their old banter he’d come in months, as shaky and fragile as a newborn colt, but _real._ Merlin blossomed under it.

Emboldened, Arthur said, “We have time now, if you want to stay. I wouldn’t mind reading.”

“I didn’t think you knew how to read,” Merlin said, but he was already moving to the bookshelves. Amused and so relieved at the return to familiar ground he could weep, he followed.

_He’s not a different person,_ Gwen had said, except that too wasn’t entirely true. A person was shaped by their experiences, and Merlin had more than Arthur could likely imagine. It would take time to pick out the new pieces, to piece together the shattered puzzle he thought he’d already solved. 

Grabbing a book, Arthur sat down and started to learn.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I thought I was gonna go way more in depth about dragonlord headcanons and stuff, but instead this ended up being 3k of Arthur attempting not to be an emotional stick in the mud lol.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
